I'm the pickiest eater ever.

Every art I do is a collage.

Oh my God, I love doing acting.

I hate musicals, especially film musicals.

Anyway, I'd get bored with just doing music!

It's always cathartic for me to write music.

I feel like good music comes and goes in waves.

I love pop music, and I love when music is accessible.

I like when pop is still good music; that's what I like.

So I don't think of myself as just a musician at all, I think of myself as an artist.

To me, I don't think a song's complete unless it's got a great variety of different textures.

I pick up inspiration from everywhere and it all manages to keep stored in my brain somewhere.

I get inspiration from movies, from fashion, then completely random things you'd never think of.

I wrote and recorded 'Outside the War' and 'Run from the Races' while I was nine months pregnant.

I'm trying so hard to do something that means something and has integrity and cares about talent.

I love watching movies. It breaks up the monotony of the road and momentarily takes you somewhere else.

But 'Sixteen Candles' is the only movie I could watch over and over and over without getting sick of it.

I've been doing transcendental meditation every day on the road, and it's one of the best things I've ever done.

There's so many different kinds of songs that could be pop songs. I don't think pop songs should sound the same.

I'm hoping to knock down the walls and broaden the lane a little bit more for music that's pop music at the heart of it.

Sometimes when you're an artist, you need to be in your own head; you need to stay in it to be able to get to a good place.

It's really hard juggling, trying to carve out a time to have a family and be a mom and have a career, especially a creative career.

Making a record's really hard. You deal with the money stuff - you never have the budget you need. You're working with so many egos.

Politics are wack - it's mostly about the characters instead of the issues, like how religion is about religion instead of spirituality.

I've always been an artist who's about being real and about telling the truth and making music with integrity and talking about something.

I've just been learning how to direct my own videos, choreography, doing costumes... every creative opportunity there is with my music I've taken.

The social media thing is insane: the constant engagement with the public, not even just your fans. It's not really about the music; it's about how you can be seen.

I feel like David Byrne is a great example of someone who is always in the 'now' moment of music and finding reasons to be excited and always seeing what's special about it.

Around 2008 was a really special time culturally. There were a lot of cool things going on in music, in fashion, politically. It was a really hopeful time and a really creative time.

I grew up listening to topical music - songs that were about things. So when I write songs, a lot of the time, they're about the things weighing on my heart that I want people to think about.

My mom's collard greens. No one else in the world can make them like hers. I'm not just saying that because she's my mom. She's got some Mississippi secret. I could seriously eat them every day.

People can feel stuff in a different way when it's through music. If you can get some inspiration into a song, it might be received in a more impactful way than if you were just to have a conversation.

I'm terrible at social media, and it sucks for me, because I know I have fans. But if you go by my Instagram, you would think, 'No one listens to her music!' It's not fair. My Instagram is not my music.

I feel like my music has so many different things going on. I've always worked with many different producers. And a lot of times, each of them has a different thing that I really love about what they do.

When I go with different producers, and they've thought about what they want to do, I think they feel a little bit more free, because they know almost any sound will work on my record if we pull it together properly - so they don't feel so limited.

The reason I make music is so that I can influence people and inspire people, but I also want to make music that I feel happy about and that I feel is good. The challenge, which is why it's worth keeping going, is to constantly strive to figure out where the meeting place is.

Pop stars are sending the message that their sexuality is the strongest thing they have to offer, and that's confusing and misleading to girls and women, especially since there's not enough of a counterbalance from those who rely on their other assets, like their music. Also, with the new obsession with all things "booty," it's important that women - and it's often women of color - aren't turned into mere caricatures. Right now it's: "Bend over." That's all people want to see. That's crazy. It's so far from where we should be.

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